Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'artificial intelligence'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • Favorites
  • General Discussion
    • Introduce Yourself
    • General Discussion
    • Jokes & Funny Stuff
    • Members' Metropolis
    • Real World News
  • Technical Help & Support
    • Hardware Hangout
    • Smart Home, Network & Security
    • Tips, Tweaks & Customization
    • Software Discussion & Support
    • Programming (C#, C++, JAVA, VB, .NET etc.)
    • Web Design & Development
  • Platforms (Operating Systems)
    • Microsoft (Windows)
    • Apple (macOS)
    • Linux
    • Android Support
  • Submitted News, Guides & Reviews
    • Essential Guides
    • Back Page News
    • Member Reviews
  • Recreational Activities
    • Gamers' Hangout
    • The Neobahn
    • The Media Room
    • The Sporting Arena
  • Neowin Services & Support
    • Site Announcements
    • Site & Forum Issues

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End

Last Updated

  • Start

    End

Filter by number of...

Found 481 results

  1. zikalify
    Google Bard now requests your actual location for better answers by Paul Hill Google has pushed out another update for its generative AI chatbot, Bard. This time, it has added the ability for users to allow access to their location so that Bard can use this and provide more relevant results. One popular Google Search query is “What time does X close?”, you’ll typically see the searched-for business in your Search results with a list of closing times. You can now do this in Bard with the location update and it will give you the closing times of the local stores you asked about. Google didn’t really expand too much on what else the precise location would enable you to do, but Bard itself says you can get location-specific information on places like coffee shops and restaurants, get directions from your current location, find events that are happening near you, and get local weather information. Having tested the weather forecast, Neowin can report that it works well but there is a small grievance. In the UK, where a hodgepodge of imperial and metric measurements are used, the main unit for measuring the temperature is Celsius. Despite knowing that the query was coming from the UK, Bard still decided to put out its response in Fahrenheit, a quick clarification swiftly resolves this though. To see which location Google Bard has for you, just look in the bottom-left corner and you should see a blue dot if you’ve given permission for it to use your location, followed by your town or city. You can also press update location if it’s now out of date due to travelling. OpenAI took an early lead in the generative AI race but while it still gets updates, its knowledge is still stuck in 2021 and it cannot do as much now as Bard, such as accessing your location or grabbing relevant pictures from the web and inserting them into your query results (at least on the free tier). We are still early on with regards to the maturity of these generative AI projects so we should see a lot more new features arriving over time. It’s so early that Google still refers to Bard as an experiment.
  2. zikalify
    Microsoft has signed deal with CoreWeave for AI computing power, say sources by Paul Hill Microsoft has signed a deal with CoreWeave, a provider of AI computing power, that could be worth billions of dollars over a number of years. The news was disclosed by sources familiar with the matter, to CNBC. While Microsoft and CoreWeave have failed to confirm the information, the sources told CNBC that the deal was made to ensure that OpenAI’s ChatGPT had enough computing power going forward. Through a partnership with Microsoft, OpenAI currently uses Microsoft Azure infrastructure to run ChatGPT, which is resource intensive. It seems that the agreement was made earlier this year. In recent weeks, we’ve seen the price of NVIDIA’s shares rocket up as investors anticipate higher earnings for the company on the back of generative AI services like ChatGPT. CoreWeave offers cloud computing services also powered by NVIDIA hardware. The revelation about this deal comes just one day after CoreWeave announced that it had secured $200 million in a Series B funding extension, bringing the round’s total to $421 million. The $200 million was invested by Magnetar Capital. According to CoreWeave, the funding is helping it fill a gap in the market that legacy cloud computing providers are struggling to fill. “By combining easy access to high-powered GPUs for training AI models with fast and flexible infrastructure and by focusing on a specific type of compute, CoreWeave continues to differentiate itself from other companies in the space,” said Ernie Rogers, Magnetar’s chief operating officer. “Magnetar believes CoreWeave sits in a sweet spot for enabling world-class results across a number of industries. We are proud to have been the lead investor for CoreWeave’s Series B funding round and its extension.” Now that knowledge of this agreement is public, it could add even more fuel to NVIDIA’s stock price as it suggests the company could see even more demand for its products as CoreWeave seeks to provide resources for Microsoft and OpenAI. Source: CNBC
  3. Aditya Tiwari
    Mozilla awards $50,000 cash prize to the makers of anti-AI watermarks by Aditya Tiwari Mozilla has announced the winners of its Responsible AI Challenge, a competition where it invited developers who want to build responsible AI solutions "that are ambitious but also ethical and holistic." The top prize winner to grab the $50,000 cash prize is Sanative AI which offers anti-AI watermarks to safeguard images and artwork from being used as training data for AI models. The organization picked a total of three winners "after weeks of reviewing hundreds of competitive consumer technology and generative AI projects," it said. The applications were vetted by a panel of judges who were AI academics, developers, and entrepreneurs. Mozilla said the competition had a variety of participants, from seasoned entrepreneurs to the ones who were in the early stages of their product. The second cash prize of $30,000 has been awarded to Kwanele Chat Bot which aims to reduce violence against women by helping them with ways to "access help fast and ensure the collection of admissible evidence." The third winner who got $20,00 in prize money is Nolano, a language model that allows large language models to run on personal devices such as laptops and smartphones. Mozilla said the winners will also get mentorship from industry leaders and access to Mozilla communities and resources. While there have been market-disrupting systems such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, the tech industry has started to question the unknown consequences of AI development. Especially when AI systems are inching closer to mimicking the human thought process. Earlier this year, an open letter was signed by more than 1,100 signatories urging AI labs to pause training of their models for some time. Microsoft, which is a prominent backer of OpenAI, recently talked about its plans to build and regulate responsible AI products. This came after the company laid off its Ethics and Society team as part of a reorganization. Google, which has been after ChatGPT with its Bard AI, has been vocal about responsible AI as well. During the Google I/O 2023 developer conference, the company dedicated an entire section of its keynote to talk about responsible AI.
  4. zikalify
    OpenAI develops LLM that uses a chain of thought like humans by Paul Hill OpenAI has released a new paper outlining some advancements it has made in eliminating the common problem of hallucinations where AI just makes stuff up. The paper outlines two models called outcome supervision and process supervision to weed out hallucinations and how they perform. With outcome supervision, OpenAI trains reward models to provide feedback on the final result the AI gives. With process supervision, the reward model provides feedback at every step of the way, creating a human-like chain of thought. In its research paper, OpenAI tested both models on a math dataset and found that the process supervision method led to “significantly better performance”. It’s important to note that the process supervision method has only been tested in the area of mathematics so far and that it will take more work to see how it performs more generally. Explaining the possible outcomes of the process supervision method, OpenAI said: “If these results generalize, we may find that process supervision gives us the best of both worlds – a method that is both more performant and more aligned than outcome supervision.” It’s still too early to say how much this step-by-step verification will help to address hallucinations more generally, but hopefully, it will because hallucinations are probably the number one issue with LLMs right now. Just this week, a lawyer that had used ChatGPT for his work and submitted false information detailing fake cases that the AI had dreamt up. OpenAI has not given a timeline for how long it will take to implement process supervision in ChatGPT which is available to the public. It’s still in the research phase and needs to be tested on general information. While initial results are good, OpenAI does mention that safer methods can incur reduced performance called an alignment tax. The results show so far that process supervision doesn’t incur this tax while working on math problems but we don’t know what will happen on more general information.
  5. zikalify
    Brave Search API is now open for use by companies and developers worldwide by Paul Hill Brave Software has announced the release of the Brave Search API. This will allow companies and developers to integrate private, ad-free search results with a simple API call. For those unfamiliar with Brave Search, it’s the default search engine in the Brave web browser and has been built from scratch by Brave Software so that its results are different from those you’ll get in Google or Bing, rather than being derived from them. Notably, Brave Search is privacy-oriented and doesn’t use algorithms to bias or censor results. Brave describes its API as “far cheaper than the Bing API” and it’s free for up to 2,000 monthly calls. It has several paid tiers, which are outlined below Data for Search - Deliver search results Base $3 CPM 20 queries/second limit Up to 20M queries per month Features Web search, Goggles, news cluster, videos cluster, autosuggest*, spellcheck* Pro $5 CPM 50 queries/second limit Unlimited queries per month Features Web search, Goggles, news cluster, videos cluster, schema-enriched Web Results, infobox, FAQ, Discussions, locations, autosuggest*, spellcheck* Data for AI - Train AI models for inference Base AI $5 CPM 20 queries/second limit Up to 20M queries per month Features Web search, Goggles, news Cluster, videos cluster, autosuggest*, spellcheck* Extra alternate snippets for AI Pro AI $9 CPM 50 queries/second limit Unlimited queries per month Features Web search, Goggles, news cluster, videos cluster, schema-enriched Web results, infobox, FAQ, Discussions, locations, autosuggest*, spellcheck* Extra alternate snippets for AI Data with storage rights - Cache/store data to train AI models Base+ $26 CPM 20 queries/second limit Up to 20M queries per month Features Web search, Goggles, news cluster, videos cluster, autosuggest*, spellcheck* Extra alternate snippets for AI Pro+ $45 CPM 50 queries/second limit Unlimited queries per month Features Web search, Goggles, news cluster, videos cluster, schema-enriched Web results, infobox, FAQ, Discussions, locations, autosuggest*, spellcheck* Extra alternate snippets for AI “The Brave Search API delivers great quality at an affordable cost,” the company said in its announcement. “Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models developers in particular should benefit from the Search API, which offers access to high-quality, Web-scale data, with exhaustive coverage of recent events. It also brings a novel data set versus competitors who might be falling back to the standard Google / Bing options.” If you are interested in trying out or buying access to the Brave Search API, head over to the service’s dedicated webpage where you can sign up right now.
  6. zikalify
    NVIDIA and MediaTek team up to bring AI to all types of cars by Paul Hill NVIDIA has announced that it’s partnering with MediaTek to develop systems-on-chips (SoCs) for vehicles that will provide infotainment services. Under the plans, MediaTek will develop the SoCs using an NVIDIA GPU chiplet that runs the NVIDIA DRIVE platform. According to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, the move won’t only benefit owners of premium vehicles. “The combination of MediaTek’s industry-leading system-on-chip plus NVIDIA’s GPU and AI software technologies will enable new user experiences, enhanced safety and new connected services for all vehicle segments, from luxury to entry-level,” Huang said. The NVIDIA-powered chip will help to deliver a performance-enhanced Dimensity Auto platform for customers. Dimensity Auto is MediaTek’s in-vehicle solution that brings entertainment and cockpit features to equipped vehicles. “NVIDIA is a world-renowned pioneer and industry leader in AI and computing. With this partnership, our collaborative vision is to provide a global one-stop shop for the automotive industry, designing the next generation of intelligent, always-connected vehicles,” said MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai. “Through this special collaboration with NVIDIA, we will together be able to offer a truly unique platform for the compute-intensive, software-defined vehicle of the future.” Last week, NVIDIA’s stock price rocketed up by $80 to around $380 per share on the back of demand it saw for AI chips to power things like ChatGPT. Whether that stock price is actually justified is a whole other matter. The stock market is closed today so we won’t be able to see what impact today’s announcements will have on the price, but it will no doubt see some uptick. The recent NVIDIA rally has been brought about thanks to generative AI and the technology is also significantly helping other companies like Microsoft and Google. With higher interest rates, the stock market has been taking a hammering as people reduce their spending but generative AI is seemingly helping tech firms buck the trend.
  7. Fiza Ali
    Navigating Microsoft's AI Frontier: Unveiling tech giant's path with caution and critique by Fiza Ali Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken centre stage in the technology landscape, promising to revolutionize industries and transform our interactions with machines. As a major player in the tech industry, Microsoft has wholeheartedly embraced AI and is making significant strides in integrating it across its products and services. Similar to Shakespeare's Prospero in The Tempest, the Redmond tech giant has harnessed the capabilities of AI to enhance productivity in the digital realm. While there are certainly appealing possibilities, it's important to critically evaluate Microsoft's claims and address the potential concerns that come with this AI-driven future. The company has leveraged AI in its productivity suite, particularly with Microsoft 365 Copilot. AI-powered features for its productivity apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, such as intelligent writing assistance, real-time language translation, and automated data analysis aim to enhance efficiency and streamline workflows. While these advancements may have their merits, it is crucial to remain cautious. The effectiveness of these features heavily relies on the quality and diversity of the underlying data they are trained on. Biases and limitations within the datasets could potentially lead to flawed outputs and reinforce existing inequalities. AI is also transforming the way we interact with personal computing devices, and Microsoft appears to be aiming to be at the forefront of this revolution. With the release of Windows 11, the company has introduced AI-driven enhancements that claim to improve the user experience. Although controversial, the redesigned Start Menu, for instance, leverages AI algorithms to personalize content based on user preferences. While personalization may seem enticing, it's important to question the extent to which AI can truly understand and cater to individual needs. There is a risk of creating echo chambers and limiting users' exposure to diverse perspectives, hindering personal growth and intellectual curiosity. In addition, AI-powered voice assistants have been widely regarded as underwhelming in terms of functionality and intelligence. Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, himself has admitted that voice assistants in general, including Cortana, "were all dumb as a rock." Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform, positions itself as a powerhouse for AI-driven innovations. By integrating AI capabilities into Azure services, the company enables developers and businesses to leverage machine learning models and computer vision algorithms without requiring extensive AI expertise. While this accessibility is commendable, it also raises concerns about data privacy, security, and the potential for misuse. Additionally, the recent collaboration with NVIDIA to host AI and metaverse services on Azure raises questions about the concentration of power and control in the hands of a few tech giants. While Microsoft claims a commitment to ethical AI development, decisions such as laying off its Ethical AI team, raise doubts about the company's true dedication to responsible AI practices. Ethical considerations, transparency, and accountability must be at the forefront of AI development to prevent unintended consequences and ensure the technology serves the best interests of individuals and communities. The tech giant is also exploring the possibilities of techno-humanism. Microsoft’s HoloLens, to which the company is reportedly committed even after laying off the Mixed Reality Toolkit team, for example, is a wearable device that uses augmented reality to enhance the user’s perception of the world around them. As such companies continue to explore the possibilities of integrating technology and humanity, it is essential that they consider the ethical implications of their actions as well. As we navigate Microsoft's push into the AI era, it's crucial to approach it with a balanced perspective. While there are undoubtedly exciting possibilities, it's essential to remain critical and address the potential risks and limitations of AI. We must hold technology companies accountable for the societal impact of their AI-driven innovations, ensuring that the technology serves as a tool for empowerment rather than exacerbating inequalities or compromising privacy and autonomy. Furthermore, Microsoft's bold leap toward the AI era calls for vigilance and careful evaluation. As we shape the future of technology, it is also crucial to maintain a healthy balance between AI's promises and its realistic limitations. By doing so, we can work towards a future where AI truly enhances our lives, serves our best interests, and respects our fundamental rights and values. Nevertheless, Microsoft's push into the AI era does compel one to reimagine what is possible and shape a future where technology and humanity coalesce in extraordinary ways.
  8. Omer Dursun
    A lawyer used ChatGPT for legal research, but later found the chatbot created fake cases by Omer Dursun In a recent court case, a lawyer relied on ChatGPT for legal research, resulting in the submission of false information. The incident sheds light on the potential risks associated with AI in the legal field, including the propagation of misinformation. The case revolved around a man suing an airline over an alleged personal injury. The plaintiff's legal team submitted a brief citing several previous court cases to support their argument, seeking to establish a legal precedent for their claim. However, the airline's lawyers discovered that some of the referenced cases did not exist and promptly alerted the presiding judge. Judge Kevin Castel, presiding over the case, expressed astonishment at the situation, labeling it an "unprecedented circumstance." In an order, the judge demanded an explanation from the plaintiff's legal team. Steven Schwartz, a colleague of the lead attorney, confessed to utilizing ChatGPT to search for similar legal precedents. In a written statement, Schwartz expressed deep regret that he "had never previously used AI for legal research and was unaware that its content could be false." Screenshots attached to the filing showed a conversation between Schwartz and ChatGPT. In the prompt, Schwartz asked if a specific case, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co Ltd, was genuine. ChatGPT affirmed its authenticity, indicating that the case could be found in legal reference databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. However, subsequent investigations revealed that the case did not exist, leading to further doubts about the other cases provided by ChatGPT. In light of this incident, both lawyers involved in the case, Peter LoDuca and Steven Schwartz from the law firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, have been summoned to an upcoming disciplinary hearing on June 8 to explain their actions. This event has prompted discussions within the legal community regarding the appropriate use of AI tools in legal research and the need for comprehensive guidelines to prevent similar occurrences. Source: NYT
  9. zikalify
    Google opens Search Generative Experience to US Search Labs users by Paul Hill Google users in the United States that signed up to Search Labs after Google I/O can now start using some of the early experiments including SGE (Search Generative Experience), Code Tips, and Add to Sheets. If you want to try out the features, you can sign up by visiting this website, you can also check your waitlist status there if you’ve signed up. The company said that its generative AI-powered Search will make searching easier. You will be able to learn about topics faster, get more viewpoints and insights, and have information pieced together for you instead of having to sift through information yourself. If you need to ask the AI any follow-up questions, you’ll find an option to “ask a follow-up question” which will take you into conversational mode. If you do try out the features, Google warns that this experiment is just a first step into adding generative AI into Search and that improvements will be made over time. In its announcement, Google laid out some examples of how SGE could provide you with better search results. It gave an example search query of “Learning ukulele vs guitar”. It said that SGE would help you get a snapshot of the benefits of both instruments to help you make a more informed choice. It also said that it could help you learn quick tips to queries such as “How to get an old coffee stain out of a wool sweater?” and help you discover new products with queries like “Peel and stick wallpaper for kitchen”. The inclusion of generative AI in Search is convenient but will also lead to problems for publishers of content. If you ask Google for a quick way to remove those coffee stains and Search tells you directly, you never need to go to the publisher’s website and view the ads that keep the website going. Google also has to ramp up the SGE feature to users quite quickly as both Bing and Brave Search already incorporate AI into their results so Google Search is falling behind a little bit. Hopefully, users outside the US won’t need to wait long for SGE and other Labs features.
  10. zikalify
    Apple tells employees not to use AI chatbots like ChatGPT over confidential data leak fears by Paul Hill Apple has told its employees not to use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot according to The Wall Street Journal which got the information from people in the know. Apple is not the only big tech firm to take such actions, Samsung has also banned its employees from using generative AI chatbots. Apple apparently told employees that using these chatbots could cause the accidental release of confidential information. While most people are familiar with ChatGPT and what it does, you may not have used GitHub Copilot. First of all, GitHub is owned by a major Apple competitor, Microsoft. With Copilot, users can automate some of their software development and Apple is concerned that Microsoft could intercept secret Apple code to see what it’s working on or just copy the products. Luckily for Apple employees who want to delegate jobs to AI, Apple is working on its own generative AI product, according to the report. It’s not clear whether Apple employees are able to use this internally yet but as soon as that goes live, there will be no need for them to resort to products like ChatGPT. Apple is due to hold its WWDC developer conference early next month. The company is expected to reveal its mixed-reality headset and it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise if we did see some sort of generative AI at least demoed. It seems like a lot of tech firms have been working on generative AI for a while now and have been quick to launch their own products; Apple could be in the same position. Speaking of WWDC, it was reported a few days ago that Apple could unveil sideloading apps on iOS. This feature has been on Android for a long time, if not from the beginning. It's definitely going to be interesting to see Apple open up iOS a bit more. Source: The Wall Street Journal
  11. zikalify
    Amazon's online store could be turbo-charged with generative AI features by Paul Hill Last week at Google I/O, the search giant showed off how it was integrating generative AI directly into search. It turns out that Amazon could be doing something similar according to a previous job listing which was spotted by Bloomberg. The job ad said that Amazon Search would help you find products based on questions, show comparisons, offer personalized results, and more. Amazon is expecting the development of its new search feature to be so monumental that it described it as a “once in a generation transformation for Search, just like the Mosaic browser made the Internet easier to engage with three decades ago.” The requirements for the job are quite high and there are additional preferred qualifications but the pay is good ranging from $136,000 to $260,000 per year depending on US geographic location. The qualifications for the job, which is no longer available, were as follows: BASIC QUALIFICATIONS 3+ years of building machine learning models for business application experience PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience Knowledge of programming languages such as C/C++, Python, Java or Perl Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Experience with modeling tools such as R, scikit-learn, Spark MLLib, MxNet, Tensorflow, numpy, scipy etc. Experience with large scale distributed systems such as Hadoop, Spark etc. Another job ad, which is still up at the time of writing seeks a Senior Technical Program Manager. The job ad states: “We are working on a new AI-first initiative to re-architect and reinvent the way we do search through the use of extremely large scale next-generation deep learning techniques. Our goal is to make step function improvements in the use of advanced Machine Learning (ML) on very large scale datasets, specifically through the use of aggressive systems engineering and hardware accelerators.” Amazon wouldn’t comment to Bloomberg on the job listings but a spokesperson said that the company is investing in generative AI across all of its businesses. If Amazon does manage to implement this new search tool into its website, it will significantly increase the connections between customers and sellers and discovery will be far easier. With that being said, it’ll be interesting to see if some sellers are negatively impacted as customers may not spend as long browsing and won’t come across as many products that they weren’t necessarily looking for. Source: Amazon (1, 2) via Bloomberg
  12. zikalify
    Google Bard rolls out Dark theme and export feature [Update] by Paul Hill It appears that Google has rolled out a Dark theme for its Bard generative AI. The company has not yet mentioned it on its Experiment updates page yet. To enable it just tap the option in the bottom left. It will turn most of the page a solid black except for the main chat area which uses various dark greys to distinguish various elements. The Dark theme obviously doesn’t add an ability to Bard’s skills but it’s a nice addition so that you don’t get blinded in the middle of the night. It’s not clear if the theme is enabled automatically based on your browser or operating system settings but you can quickly toggle between Light and Dark. In recent weeks, Google has also spruced up the send message button in Bard so that the send arrow flies past several of those Bard stars. It’s a nice addition, but again, doesn’t really add to the ability of the Bard model itself. Stay tuned to Neowin’s coverage of Google I/O where we expect plenty of AI and Bard-related news to drop. Update: Google has updated its Bard release notes to mention the new Dark theme. Also, you can now export responses to email and Google Docs, just tap the upload button to the left of the Google it button.
  13. zikalify
    Microsoft invests in an AI company that makes it easy to build software by Paul Hill Builder.ai, a company that makes it possible to build software without technical expertise using artificial intelligence (AI), has received funding from Microsoft. The “equity investment” from Microsoft is just part of a wider strategic collaboration between the two companies. Aside from equity, this partnership will more tightly integrate Microsoft’s and Builder.ai’s services. Explaining a bit more about the integration, Builder.ai said that there will be integrations across Azure OpenAI Service and other Azure Cognitive Services with Builder.ai’s software. Builder.ai will also adopt Microsoft Cloud and AI. Microsoft customers will be able to use a natively integrated version of Builder.ai’s Natasha AI product manager with Microsoft Teams to easily build prototypes of their business applications. “Our collaboration with Builder.ai is an extension of our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” said Jon Tinter, Corporate Vice President, Business Development, Microsoft. “We see Builder.ai creating an entirely new category that empowers everyone to be a developer and our new, deeper collaboration fuelled by Azure AI will bring the combined power of both companies to businesses around the world.” Builder.ai, in its statement, did not disclose publicly how much Microsoft had invested as part of the deal. Microsoft has ploughed billions of dollars into OpenAI in recent months so it’s likely that the Builder.ai investment is at least in the millions of dollars range.
  14. zikalify
    Google Chrome's WebGPU integration to take the strain off data centres and boost security by Paul Hill Last month, Google released Chrome 113 with support for WebGPU. The main benefit of WebGPU is that it enables high-performance 3D graphics to be displayed effortlessly in the browser. With the proliferation of generative AI, Google wants to leverage WebGPU to take some of the pressure off data centres and make browsers do some of the work. According to CNET, Google is planning a demonstration at its annual Google I/O conference that will show Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion software turning a text prompt into an image, using WebGPU to do the processing. Being able to process AI tasks with WebGPU brings a few benefits to users. It allows you to avoid any network problems that may occur and it can give you greater control over your data. Earlier this month, Samsung banned its employees from using generative AI chatbots following a security leak. By running AI tasks locally, businesses like Samsung could use AI tools with greater security and privacy. The report states that Google is planning to announce a partnership with Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Microsoft’s Edge on something called Baseline. Baseline will outline the features that web developers will know work across the involved browsers. This should improve the compatibility of websites and web apps across platforms. Baseline 2024 could arrive by the end of this year and then be continuously updated as needed. Source: CNET
  15. Aditya Tiwari
    Meta open sources ImageBind AI model that combines six different data types by Aditya Tiwari Meta announced today that it's open-sourcing a new AI model called ImageBind. It's a multimodal AI designed to work with six different types of data, including text, audio, video, 3D, thermal, and motion. ImageBind can receive input in one of the supported data modes which it can relate to others. For instance, it can find the sound of waves when given a picture of a beach. When it's fed with a photo of a tiger and the sound of the waterfall, the system can give a video that combines both, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained on his Instagram broadcast channel. "This is a step towards AIs that understand the world around them more like we do, which will make them a lot more useful and will open up totally new ways to create things," he said. Meta explains in a blog post that ImageBind takes an approach similar to how humans can gather information from multiple senses, and process all of it simultaneously and holistically. In the future, it plans to expand the supported data modes to other senses such as touch, speech, smell, and brain fMRI signals, which will enable richer human-centric AI models. For reference, existing AI models like Open AI's DALL E 2, MidJourney, and Stable Diffusion are trained to link text and images. These systems take inputs in the form of natural language text prompts and generate an image accordingly. ImageBind can have various applications, for instance, it can be used to improve search functionality for pictures, videos, audio files, or text messages using a combination of text, audio, and image. Meta's AI tool Make-A-Scene which currently uses text prompts to generate images can leverage ImageBind to generate images using audio. Meta has published a research paper [PDF] describing its open-source AI model but it's yet to release a tool or consumer product based on it.
  16. zikalify
    Microsoft's Mikhail Parakhin says Bing Chat should get model updates three times a year by Paul Hill Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft’s head of Advertising and Web Services, has suggested that Bing Chat could receive new model updates about three times per year. Model updates tend to bring new features to these generative AI chatbots. Such updates in the past have introduced better formatting for answers in Bing Chat’s Creative mode. To be clear, nothing is codified in a roadmap or anything at this point, Parakhin was just responding with a rough estimate. He said “you should expect models to be updated maybe three times a year or so,” suggesting that it’s a rough guess at this point and is subject to change at any time. Models themselves it takes months to train, so, outside of some small RLHF tuning runs, you should expect models to be updated maybe 3 times a year or so. — Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) May 8, 2023 In addition to major updates three times a year, he said there will be some small reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) "tuning runs" that could improve the responses of Bing Chat. Since ChatGPT came onto the scene at the end of last year, OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft have all been issuing updates to their respective generative AI products. These incremental updates will be quite an important factor going forward as users will likely gravitate to the service that is most capable. Via: Search Engine Roundtable
  17. zikalify
    UK competition watchdog launches review into generative AI by Paul Hill The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which recently blocked Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard, is now launching an initial review of “artificial intelligence models” such as those that power Bing Chat and ChatGPT. The CMA launched the review after the government asked regulators to look into how AI will affect consumers, businesses, and the UK economy. Through the initial review, the CMA wants to look at three things in particular. It wants to see how these AI models could evolve. It wants to look into the opportunities and risks for competition and consumer protection. Finally, it wants to set out principles to support competition and protect consumers. Various regulators in the UK will be looking into how AI affects their target area. AI touches on several important issues such as safety, security, copyright, privacy, and human rights. Take for example the replacement of writers by AI, well it’s not so simple a matter of asking the AI to spit out an article for you. In terms of copyright, the output generated by the AI actually belongs to the company that makes the AI. While Google or OpenAI won’t come after you for cheating on your homework, they very well may come after people using outputs for commercial purposes. All of these various issues will be investigated by the UK’s different regulators but the CMA will focus more narrowly on the implication AI has for competition and consumer protection. “AI has burst into the public consciousness over the past few months but has been on our radar for some time. It’s a technology developing at speed and has the potential to transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth,” said Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA. “It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information. Our goal is to help this new, rapidly scaling technology develop in ways that ensure open, competitive markets and effective consumer protection.” The CMA is now seeking evidence from stakeholders (basically, anyone who may be affected) until June 2. After it has collected these insights and done its own analysis, it will publish a report with its findings in September. If you’d like to find out more or track the development of this work, head over to the initial review webpage.
  18. Karthik Mudaliar
    Microsoft might launch private ChatGPT for businesses that need their data safe and isolated by Karthik Mudaliar Microsoft is planning to launch a privacy-centric version of ChatGPT in response to concerns that people's data may be exploited for the training of artificial intelligence models. The move is set to appeal to industries like healthcare, finance, and banking that have refrained from using ChatGPT due to the potential risk of their staff sharing sensitive information with the system. A separate version of the AI tool will run on dedicated cloud servers where data will be kept separate from that of other customers. The data on these dedicated servers will be isolated from the main ChatGPT system to ensure privacy. The private setup could cost as much as 10 times more than what customers currently pay to use ChatGPT. OpenAI also plans to launch a new privacy-focused business subscription that won't feed user data to train models by default. OpenAI has also sold Morgan Stanley a private ChatGPT service using which the bank's wealth management division is able to ask questions and analyze thousands of the bank's market research documents. Since Microsoft already has a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment into OpenAI, it is allowed to resell its products without breaking any terms. The privacy-centric AI service from Microsoft can be a game changer for companies that tend to deal with important and sensitive data. Samsung banned its employees from using generational AI chatbots at work or on devices they use for work when it found that some of its employees had uploaded company source code. Salespeople from Microsoft are already inquiring organizations about the upcoming product, as many existing customers have contracts with Azure that could prove beneficial in managing the data securely. Microsoft is expected to launch its private AI service later this quarter. Source: The Information
  19. Karthik Mudaliar
    Box announces AI integration into its products in partnership with OpenAI by Karthik Mudaliar Cloud storage company Box has announced that it is introducing new artificial intelligence (AI) features across its products in partnership with OpenAI. The features will include analyzing information across customer contracts, summarizing financial documents, surface insights from surveys, and more. Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, said: “We are at the start of a platform shift in enterprise software driven by recent advancements in generative AI, and nowhere is the potential impact greater than in enterprise content. We’ve seen a step function improvement in our ability to analyze and synthesize the massive amounts of data contained within an organization’s unique documents, videos, presentations, spreadsheets, and more. When combined with AI, we will be able to unlock the value of this content and make every person in a company smarter and more productive. Content is an organization’s most important data, and with Box AI we’re just getting started with how we’ll transform the way work gets done.” Although there's not a separate product yet, many companies are now jumping on the AI bandwagon to refine their existing functionalities. Box is also doing the same with what it calls Box AI. The company is currently focusing on a few use cases that we have already seen possible with generative AI. For starters, by clicking on the Box AI button, users can ask questions such as "Summarize this document for me", or "When does the NDA expire?" which could come in handy for complex and lengthy documents or contracts. Here are some more use cases that Box mentioned in their press release: Sales teams will be able to use Box AI to get answers to questions in complex contracts to speed up the sales cycle. Analysts will be able to have Box AI summarize lengthy financial reports to inform their rating recommendations. Legal teams will be able to ask Box AI to identify key clauses, terms, and obligations from a contract to speed up review cycles. Operations teams will be able to tell Box AI to extract key takeaways from a budget to update corporate strategy decks without waiting on a co-worker from the finance team for the right piece of information. Customer service teams will be able to use Box AI to surface insights from hundreds of customer feedback surveys to identify key areas for improvement. Box says that it caters to more than 115,000 customers and bringing foundational AI models to where their content is already securely stored will be more useful and valuable. For now, Box AI will only be available to select customers through its upcoming "Design Partner Program". Interested users can also sign up for private beta access when it becomes available. Pricing and other details will be announced later upon general availability.
  20. zikalify
    Don't believe everything you hear: AI voice scams rising with 25% of adults affected by Paul Hill The cybersecurity company McAfee has released a new report (PDF) that suggests a growing number of people are being tricked by artificial intelligence voice scams. It found that 10% of surveyed adults had been personally targeted and another 15% knew someone who had been targeted. What’s quite alarming is that AI can mimic anybody’s voice with just three seconds of audio. It’s easy to imagine the havoc this can cause. Of the victims, 77% had reported losing money as a part of the scam. Cybercriminals can use this technique to leave fake voicemails or even call the victim’s contacts pretending to be them. A third of the 77% who lost money said they lost over $1,000. Around 7% said that lost large sums between $5,000 and $15,000. “Artificial intelligence brings incredible opportunities, but with any technology, there is always the potential for it to be used maliciously in the wrong hands. This is what we’re seeing today with the access and ease of use of AI tools helping cybercriminals to scale their efforts in increasingly convincing ways,” said Steve Grobman, McAfee CTO. So, how on Earth do you protect yourself against these types of scams? McAfee has some tips for you to start securing your communications. First, it says to establish a codeword, this can be used by your contacts to establish you’re talking to a real person and not an AI fake. Another tip is to question the source. If you are suspicious of the call, you should hang up right away and phone the person back on the phone number you have saved for them. This way, you can avoid being scammed.
  21. Aditya Tiwari
    Watch these tiny soccer robots scoring goals and getting pushed by researchers by Aditya Tiwari It's not just Disney that has tiny robots capable of performing complex movements. Google DeepMind recently published a paper to discuss how deep reinforcement learning can be used to train low-cost miniature humanoid robots so they can learn complex movement skills. The London-headquartered research lab was renamed to Google DeepMind as part of a recent restructuring, where the Google Brain team was combined with the DeepMind team. The researchers trained small humanoid robots to play simplified one-vs-one soccer matches in a 5m x 4m fixed-sized court. For that purpose, they used the Robotis OP3 platform which has 20 controllable joints and various sensors. Their goal was to see if the robots can learn "dynamic movement skills such as rapid fall recovery, walking, turning, kicking, and more." The robots were first taught individual skills separately in simulation which were then merged end-to-end in a self-play setting. In one of the videos created by researchers, a robot tasked with scoring a goal is pushed multiple times to see its "robustness to pushes." The robot falls to the ground and then gets back up on its own to score a goal. Researchers added that the robot players can automatically transition between these skills "in a smooth, stable, and efficient manner - well beyond what is intuitively expected from the robot." The robots also learned to anticipate ball movements and block opponent shots by developing a basic strategic understanding of the game. While their primary job was to score goals, experiments showed that they walked 156% faster, took 63% less time to get up, and kicked 24% faster than a scripted baseline. Source: DeepMind Via Ars Technica
  22. Karthik Mudaliar
    IBM says it will pause hiring for jobs to be replaced by AI automation by Karthik Mudaliar IBM says that it is expecting to pause hiring for around 7,800 jobs that could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the coming years. The reduction in jobs would also include not filling back the roles vacated by attrition. Company CEO Arvind Krishna, in an interview with Bloomberg, said that the job freeze would affect the back-office functions such as human resources the most. Krishna said, "I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period”. The use of AI to automate tasks like customer service, writing, and coding has worried the general workforce. Krishna believes that routine tasks such as employee verification letters or transferring staff between departments will be completely automated, while some HR functions like assessing workforce composition and productivity will remain unaffected for the next ten years. IBM, earlier this year, had disclosed its plans to lay off approximately 3,900 employees. Despite that, IBM continues hiring employees for software development and customer-facing roles. Krishna said that IBM has added around 7,000 people in the first quarter of this year. Source: Bloomberg
  23. Aditya Tiwari
    This app lets you video chat with a ChatGPT-powered AI by Aditya Tiwari Have you ever wondered if ChatGPT was a real person you could talk to? Call Annie is a new app that enables one-to-one video-based conversations with a ChatGPT-powered bot. The app features a female avatar that is capable of having normal conversations with the users. Its App Store listing describes various conversation topics the "AI friend" is capable of, for instance, it can be used to understand complex subjects, learn a new language, improve general knowledge, prepare for interviews, and more. The listing further reads that talking "face-to-face in real-time time feels more natural and faster than typing and reading text." Several users have talked to the ChatGPT-powered bot and uploaded video recordings on the web. While the responses don't seem to have much lag, the bot's voice in the recordings shared by the users does sound robotic. Not to be too much of an AI Doomer but I just had a FaceTime call with a near realtime ChatGPT-powered AI avatar and it was…surprisingly human. Anyway, I recorded it. This is the actual response speed, it’s very fast. (You can also hear me kind of lose it towards the end) pic.twitter.com/MF81nAo40Z — Chris Frantz (@frantzfries) April 26, 2023 The app's developers said in a Reddit post that the original image of Annie's face was created using Midjourney. However, facial expressions are animated in real-time using on-device processing to match the generated speech. For that reason, the free-to-use app currently relies on Apple's Neural Engine and its video calling mode is only available on iPhone 12 or later models. Users with older iPhone models are limited to audio-only calls. However, Call Annie is also compatible with Mac computers that are powered by Apple's M-series chips and run macOS 13 or later. The bot can also assist users on their travel adventures by providing information about various things such as local customs and must-see attractions. However, speaking of privacy, the developers claim that all the conversations with the AI bot are kept confidential. While replying to a user, they said that no voice recording is saved and only the "transcript is saved/forwarded to ChatGPT to get all the dialogue." Multiple Reddit users reported that the bot insisted its "name was Samantha" when addressed by the name Annie, suggesting that it's a successor to the older chatbot named Samantha. The developers responded that the issue will be fixed soon. While replying to another user, they said that the assistant is "more of a “proof of concept” than final version" and more characters and voices are on the radar. In related news, it was recently estimated that the cost of running ChatGPT could be as high as $700,000 per day. ChatGPT features have also been added to Stardock's Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova Edition which is available as an early access title. Furthermore, OpenAI recently added an incognito mode to ChatGPT, allowing users to disable the chat history and training data collection. Via Digital Trends
  24. John Callaham
    Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova Edition Early Access launches with ChatGPT features by John Callaham In March, Stardock announced Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova as a standalone expansion for its space strategy game Galactic Civilizations IV. Today, the game is available to purchase as an Early Access title. It also announced new features that may make the game one of the first to use OpenAI's ChatGPT generative AI technology. As the press release from Stardock states: This latest sequel introduces AI-generated content OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology allowing players to create their own civilizations that uses AI to create the lore, conversation dialogs, quests and more. The game also uses AI, trained on decades of Stardock’s alien art to deliver custom graphics for their custom civilization. A post on the game's official forms offers more info on this feature: For the past several months, we have been working to build GPT technology into our Tachyon engine, Stardock’s cloud-based metagaming technology that has previously been seen in Ashes of the Singularity, Offworld Trading Company and Star Control: Origins. Thanks to OpenAI’s ChatGPT API and Tachyon, we are proud to demonstrate what this technology can do for games. Players of Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova can just type in a prompt to begin creating their own alien species. The generative AI features also extend to making new quests: With Tachyon, our games, starting with Galactic Civilizations, can just ask for a new quest. Where is gets really crazy that we can ask in the language of the player so the result comes back as a native speaker (or alternatively, as good/bad at it as English). The game is available from Steam and the Epic Games Store for $39.99. If you have already bought the original Galactic Civilizations IV on the Epic Games Store, you can get Supernova for a big discount. Disclaimer: Neowin's relationship to Stardock
  25. zikalify
    AI on the brink of consciousness? AMCS open letter calls for action by Paul Hill The Association for Mathematical Consciousness Science (AMCS), has penned an open letter calling on big tech and other bodies to accelerate research in consciousness science. The call has been made given the rapid development of ChatGPT, Bard, Bing Chat, and other generative AIs. The AMCS is not the first organization to write an open letter with AI concerns. Just this week, the Microsoft-backed BSA called for federal rules and guidelines on AI and in March, over a thousand signatories, including Elon Musk, asked all AI labs to pause AI training. According to AMCS, it’s not such wild thinking to expect AI to soon reach “higher-level brain architecture and functioning”. It said this would put it somewhere in our moral landscape which would raise ethical, legal, and political concerns. As such, it wants to ensure that society understands the implications of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). Suggesting a possible way forward, AMCS says that consciousness research is vital for understanding AI. It said that society and the scientific community need to take its concerns seriously. It hopes that its letter will accelerate research in consciousness so we can better understand AI and ensure positive outcomes for humanity. If you’d like to read the letter in full, you can find it here. If you scroll to the bottom, you can add your name to it to show you’re in alignment with what it says.